ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — The Minnesota Wild and backup goalie Alex Stalock have agreed to terms on a three-year, $2.355 million contract extension.

The deal, announced Tuesday, carries an annual average value of $785,000 against the salary cap over the 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons. The 31-year-old Stalock is in his third season with the Wild, with a 2.92 goals-against average and .894 save percentage over 14 appearances. He has made 10 starts in relief of All-Star Devan Dubnyk.

Stalock played at South St. Paul High School, just five miles from the Wild’s home arena, and in college for Minnesota-Duluth before beginning his NHL career with San Jose. Stalock, who played in a career-high 28 games last season, is 41-35-11 in 106 career NHL games.

The last time the San Jose Sharks missed the playoffs in back-to-back years was in 1996 and 1997, but they’re in danger of it happening again.

Whether or not they’ll be able to prevent that will depend largely on their goaltending. With Antti Niemi gone, San Jose is going with a combination of Alex Stalock and Martin Jones between the pipes. There’s certainly potential there, but the duo only has 83 games worth of NHL experience between them.

Stalock wasn’t that great last season either and while Jones had an impressive 2.25 GAA in Los Angeles last season, his .906 save percentage left something to be desired. Besides which, Los Angeles only called on him 15 times last season and just 11 of those were starts. So it’s entirely possible that neither will be ready to take the reigns in 2015-16 and that alone could sink the Sharks.

If their goaltending proves to be adequate though, then they still might run into issues offensively. Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau will both be 36 years old by the time the season starts and they declined somewhat last season. The Sharks no longer need them to be the team’s offensive leaders, but they do have to be significant contributors and if their age is catching up with them then that could be a big problem.

At the same time though, the Sharks do have reasons to be hopeful. They have some promising young players, including Tomas Hertl, who has shown flashes of brilliance but struggled in his sophomore season. Still, he’s just 21 years old and could be major part of this team going forward. On the defensive side of things, Brent Burns is coming off of a great campaign and newcomer Paul Martin should help solidify their top-four.

San Jose has the potential to be competitive this season, but it all comes back to Stalock and Jones as it’s hard to see this group doing much if neither of those two step up.

Throughout the month of August, PHT will be dedicating a day to all 30 NHL clubs. Today’s team? The San Jose Sharks.

After suffering a reverse sweep at the hands of the Los Angeles Kings in the first round of the 2014 playoffs, Sharks GM Doug Wilson declared San Jose a “tomorrow team” in a summer that drew confusion and criticism from some, but went “exactly the right way,” according to the general manager. When all was said and done though, the result that San Jose missed the playoffs for the first time since 2003.

At the age of 35, Patrick Marleau took a significant step back offensively as he scored just 19 goals after reaching the 30-goal milestone for five straight campaigns, not including the lockout shortened season. Joe Thornton, who turned 36 in July, also saw a longstanding streak end as he recorded less than 70 points (65) in a season where he played in at least 70 games for the first time since 1999-2000.

San Jose still wasn’t bad offensively. Joe Pavelski and Logan Couture recorded 70 and 67 points respectively while Brent Burns tied for second among defensemen with 60 points. The Sharks just weren’t great in that regard though and their goaltending proved to be uninspired as well. Antti Niemi was a mixed bag and Alex Stalock, who had been a superb understudy in 2013-14, declined substantially last season.

With mediocrity being the Sharks’ calling card at both ends of the ice, they finished with a 40-33-9 record and were eight points behind Calgary for the third Pacific Division spot.

Off-season recap

Head coach Todd McLellan and the San Jose Sharks mutually agreed to part ways after failing to make the playoffs, which led to Peter DeBoer being named as the team’s new bench boss.

With that done, Sharks GM Doug Wilson moved on to the team’s biggest question mark going into the summer: the goaltending. Niemi was slated to become an unrestricted free agent and Wilson made his intentions clear by trading the netminder’s negotiating rights to Dallas. He later acquired Martin Jones, who enjoyed two strong season as the Kings’ backup goalie, to battle with Stalock for the top job.

San Jose also signed defenseman 34-year-old Paul Martin to a four-year, $19.4 million contract and forward Joel Ward to a three-year deal worth just under $10 million.

Once again the core of the Sharks hasn’t fundamentally changed, but at the same time the 2015-16 version of the team will certainly feature noteworthy differences from its predecessor.

The San Jose Sharks announced that they re-signed Aaron Dell to a one-year contract.

Dell, 26, went undrafted and spent parts of three seasons with the University of North Dakota. He went pro in 2012-13 and has been battling in the minors ever since. He took a step up in 2014-15 by posting a 2.06 GAA and .927 save percentage with the AHL’s Worcester Sharks .

That gave Dell the fifth best GAA and fourth ranked save percentage in the AHL.

With After Niemi gone, Martin Jones and Alex Stalock are expected to battle for playing time with San Jose next season. That leaves Dell to fight with Troy Grosenick and Joel Rumpel for a spot on the AHL squad. Each member of the trio will also be competing to establish himself as the third-string goaltender in order to be positioned for a potential summoning if Jones or Stalock get hurt.

The 25-year-old has appeared in 34 career NHL games all with the L.A. Kings. Jones was 4-5-2 to go along with a 2.25 G.A.A. and a .906 save percentage in 15 appearances last season.

“I think I’m ready to definitely take that step and play more hockey games,” Jones said during a conference call on Tuesday. “I had a great two years in L.A. learning from Jonathan Quick. It’s been a big couple of years in my development and I’m looking forward to the new challenge.”

Jones is expected to challenge Alex Stalock for the starting role in San Jose next season.

“It’s going to be fun to be honest with you,” Jones said. “You get to play those guys a lot. Obviously, they have a great team. To be able to play those guys is fun. I’m looking forward to it.”